Big D stands for trees - Clippings

American Forests, Autumn, 2002 by Charles Enloe

Dallas is known across America for barbecue, 10-gallon hats, and the Cowboys. But the Big D is gaining recognition as the home of one of the nation's most important urban tree farms.

The Dallas Trees and Parks Foundation, with assistance from local energy company TXU, planted more than 3,800 trees on the campus of Richland Community College in July. The foundation will eventually sell the trees to groups conducting community tree-planting projects.

Representatives of several major media outlets were on hand as hundreds of volunteers, many of them TXU employees, gathered to plant the oaks, cypresses, and pistachios. Mike Bradshaw, executive director of the Dallas Trees and Parks Foundation, said the site is the second of five or six urban tree farms the foundation hopes to start. The farms will supply the foundation, which gives trees to nonprofit groups including neighborhood associations, schools, and churches.

The trees will be made available for a $25 donation beginning in November and the revenue used to help foundation projects.

"It lets us, through an entrepreneurial spirit, sustain our entire organization through our tree program," Bradshaw says.

TXU spokeswoman Gailee Cardwell says public reaction has been quite positive. "[People] seem ecstatic. I got so much coverage from every media outlet, I think it's something new; it's something that's needed in the community."